What is the Turing Test?
The Turing Test was developed during the 1950's by
a man by the name of Alan Turing. Basically, it is
a test for artificial intelligence. Turing concluded
that a machine could be seen as being intelligent if
it could "fool" a human into believing it was human.
The original Turing Test involved a human interrogator
using a computer terminal, which was in turn connected
to two additional, and unseen, terminals. At one of
the "unseen" terminals is a human; at the other is a
piece of computer software or hardware written to act
and respond as if it were human.
The interrogator would converse with both human and
computer. If, after a certain amount of time (Turing
proposed five minutes, but the exact amount of time
is generally considered irrelevant), the interrogator
cannot decide which candiate is the machine and which
the human, the machine is said to be intelligent.
This test has been broadened over time, and generally
a machine is said to have passed the Turing Test if
it can convince the interrogator into believing it is
human, without the need for a second, human, candidate.
Turing Links
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